Employee Turnover at Google Inc - Report Example

Employee Turnover at Google Inc E-mail address number and Introduction Google is an American technology company that deals with internet services and products. It engages in online advertising solutions and technologies, search, surfware and cloud computing. The company is ranked as one of the fastest growing technology businesses in the world, currently employing more than 30,000 people directly. Google has grown and become an international business entity. It has opened offices and branches in different world countries as a way of ensuring that it meets its business goals and objectives. After the incorporation, Google Inc. has experienced rapid growth in terms of market presence and the range of products offered. It has engaged in partnerships and acquisitions beyond its original search engine products. However, Google’s major online productivity software and platforms such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs and Google Plus still remain important assets to the company. It has also taken a leading role in the development of the Android Mobile operating system. Google Inc. has also moved in the production of communication hardware through partnerships with various electronic companies and manufacturers. Nexus devices were the flagship communication devices that the company produced. In 2012, it also acquired Motorola Mobility further strengthening its position in the communication device manufacturing sector. Google Inc.’s string performance in the market is attributed to its talented staff. It has one of the most talented and creative human resource assets in the world. The employees are offered good pay packages to ensure that they remain loyal to the technology giant. Preliminary Problem Statement Despite the attractive packages offered by Google Inc. to its employees, it is ranked among the companies with the highest rates of employee turnover in the world. The median tenure in the company stands at just over one year. Employees are the single most important asset that Google Inc. has. The efficiency and the innovativeness of its workers has enabled the company to come up with various products and technology solutions capable of meeting various consumer needs in the market. Moreover, it has allowed it to remain a trend setter and a market leader in the competitive technology industry. The high employee turnover rates at Google do not only affect the levels of creativity and innovativeness but also makes the company incur increased costs as it strives to fill the vacant positions. Since the company is one of the technology firms which offer the best remuneration packages, many people expect Google to have high employee tenure. However, this not to be the case and the firm has found itself struggling to ensure that its employees remain loyal rather than jumping ships to work for other technology firms and rivals. The formulated research question to be used in this paper to explore the problem is: “What causes the high employee turnover rate at Google Inc.?” Literature Review Nawaz & Shakir (2014) defines turnover to be the process in which workers part ways with their employer due to various reason. Some of the things which make workers and the employer to go separate ways include death, retirement, resignation, and transfer. Turnover is usually measured in terms of the number of workers who leave a given organization in a particular duration of time. The number can be expressed in percentage to give the percentage turnover rate. Rogoff (2014) identifies four different types of employee turnover. The first one is the voluntary turnover where the worker makes the decision to leave a particular organization. It can be as a result of another offer, staff conflict or lack of growth opportunities in the present place of work. The second type of turnover is the involuntary turnover. According to Nawaz & Shakir (2014), involuntary turnover occurs where the employer makes the decision to discharge or transfer an employee from a given position. In most instances, the discharged worker will be unwilling to leave his or her duties leading to poor performance and staff conflicts. The third type is functional turnover which entails employees who are not performing well leaving their duties and jobs. The decision can be made by the employee or the employer. The final category is the dysfunctional turnover where high performing workers leave a given organization. Dysfunctional turnover is known to impact greatly on the operation of the organizations especially in the cases where the workers who leave were very crucial and instrumental to the success of the organization. Employee turnover is a very serious problem which faces many organizations today. According to Nawaz & Shakir (2014), employees remain the single most important asset and resource that organizations have in the market. The workforce influences the kind of services offered, the efficiency of processes and the innovativeness and creativity of a given enterprise. It implies that the workers directly and indirectly impact on the profits and revenues which are made by the business in the market. Due to the increasing importance of the world, human resource management has grown to become a vital strategy in the competitive global arena. Organizations are coming up with ways through which they can get the best out of their workforce. Even with these efforts being made, employee turnover remains a thorn in the flesh for most organizations. Florence et al. (2015) states that there are several reasons which may make employees to leave their present jobs and move to other jobs and organizations. Despite the fact that the factors are many, the ultimate decision for voluntary turnover rests on the employee. When doing so they have to think about how their decision will affect their wellbeing. Nawaz & Shakir (2014), states that in most case, employee turnover is caused by employee dissatisfaction with the job that they are doing. There are a lot of reason that have been identified as the possible reason why workers leave their present jobs and places of work to take up new opportunities. Some of the most common driving factors include low pay, long working hours, poor working conditions, minimal benefits and poor management. According to Florence et al. (2015), low pay is perhaps the most critical factor that contributes to employee dissatisfaction. Employees take up jobs to not only develop their careers but also be able to provide for themselves and their households. The pay that they are offered in a given job will directly determine their ability to be able to meet such needs. As such, businesses have made it their own responsibility of ensuring that they offer the best pay package to their workers. Such initiatives allow the workers to achieve higher job tenure and in the long run ensure that the productivity and the innovativeness of the business are enhanced. Mernin (2015), however, disagrees with this claim by pointing out that despite the fact that pay is a key issue, it is not the single most influential factor which will determine whether an employee stays in an organization or moves on to work for another company. This claim is backed up by Florence et al. (2015) who argue that in some instances, there are other factors that are capable of driving employees out of their present places of work other than the low pay. It is for this reason that companies known to offer the most attractive pay packages in the world are also faced with high turnover rates. Another commonly identified reason for high employee turnover is poor management. According to Nawaz & Shakir (2014), the kind of organization structures and management approaches employed by businesses today determines how successful they will be in holding to their workers. In the instances where the employees feel that the existing management approaches and organization structures do not support their growth or meet their needs, then there are higher chances that they may leave to look for new pastures. Rogoff (2014) contributes to the debate by stating that employees view themselves as an extension of the company and therefore if the management does not taken them as a very important asset to the company, they may opt to look for new positions where they will be more valued. The management approaches employed by the leadership in a particular organization affects almost all the aspects of the employees’ wellbeing. It influences the working hours, how the workers relate with the management, routines as well as the agreed practices within particular company. Businesses which are able to effectively align their management tactics and approaches with the needs of the employees tend to be more successful in retaining their key workers. The kind of leadership and management approaches used will also influence the recruitment procedures that will be used in getting new workers to fill in the vacant positions. The more effective the recruitment approach is, the more successful the company will be in terms of getting the benefits from its workforce and in retaining crucial staff members. Existing literature appears to greatly attribute employee turnover to factors that originate from the side of the employer (Mernin, 2015; Nawaz & Shakir, 2014). However, Florence et al. (2015) appears to give another perspective by arguing that despite the fact that the employer will play a very big role in influencing the length of job tenure that the workers will have, the ultimate decision to stay within a given organization or move to another company will rely on the employee. Even in the situations where there is good management structures and attractive pay, workers may still have other personal reasons to seek new opportunities elsewhere. It therefore appears that the reasons for employee turnover are very much intertwined making it difficult to pin point a single reason which may be driving workers away. Analysis Being a company operating in a competitive technology market, Google is negatively impacted by the growing number of employees leaving its ranks. An insight into the trend within the company reveals that the turnover issue that has faced Google can be classified as involuntary turnover. Most of the employees who leave Google leave at their own will. They make the decision to either stay with the company or leave the company for reasons that are best known to them. Google employees boast one of the most attractive pay packages in the world. Such packages are meant to encourage the workers to stay at Google. However, it is quite evident that the company is still experiencing the turnover challenges judging to the low job tenure in the company. It implies that the workers at Google are still dissatisfied with their jobs but the source of the dissatisfaction is a factor other than the pay issue. A look at the nature of workforce at Google reveals that the company has heavily relied on and employed the young workers to drive its growth. The reasoning behind the practice is that the young employees are not only creative but also innovative enough to allow the business to remain competitive. This in itself appears to be one of the reasons why the company is facing high turnover problems. Florence et al. (2015) states that the Generation Y population, which forms the larger chunk of the company’s workforce, is very different from a workforce consisting of the older workers. The younger employees have different feeling towards their employer. Jadoo et al. (2015) says that the older employees are not only better placed to deal with different challenges that they face in the cause of their work but can also handle some of the economic changes in the global market which may in one way or the other impact on their jobs According to Lindsay & Spillane (2015), the decision by a company to rely on a particular generation propels its growth and influences the type of recruitment procedures that it will use. Google relies on a non-conventional recruitment process that differs from the recruitment practices used by other companies. Google does not rely on the traditional method of judging applicants based on their resume, presentation skills or experience but rather on the basis of their innovativeness, smartness and creativity. Such non-conventional approaches have not been successful in helping the company retain its workforce. The other issue that appears to be causing the problem at Google is the poaching by other companies. Google workers are known all over the world to be innovative, creative and skillful. The ability of its workforce has allowed the company to stay ahead of the pack in terms product range and variety. Other rival companies have resorted to enticing Google workers away from their present jobs. The company continues to lose its crucial workers in some cases due to lack of clear frameworks to prevent the poaching concern. Solutions Employees remain a key asset at Google and the company cannot be successful without the workers. As such, there is need to come up with mechanisms which will effectively deal with the issue and help mitigate the impact that it is having on the organization. As noted earlier, the turnover issue affecting Google is as a result of employee motivation, ineffective recruitment procedures and poaching of employees by other companies. These three issues need to be addressed for Google to continue with the growth trajectory that it has had over the years. One of the most effective ways of dealing with the employee motivation issues is by providing them with a stimulating work environment. By offering a stimulating work environment, Google will be able to foster both professional and personal growth for its workers (Rogoff, 2014). Moreover, such environments will create harmony and enhance productivity within the company. The second recommendation for dealing with the issue is by redesigning the recruitment procedures. The use of non-conventional recruitment procedures has denied Google the opportunity to tap into the experienced older workers who are known to stay in their jobs longer than the younger people .Google needs to look into its recruitment practices to ensure that it does not only focus on the talent and creativity but also on the ability of the potential recruits to stay in their jobs for a long time. Finally, Google needs motivate its workers more by making them a crucial asset for the company. The company can do this by offering professional training and development opportunities. With the right kind of motivation, the number of workers leaving the company will be reduced. Reflection This project has revealed that employees play a critical part in the success of any business. There is no single company that can claim to be capable of succeeding without having the right workforce in place to facilitate its operations. This project has allowed me to look deeply into the employee turnover issue from different scholarly perspectives. By relying on idea and literature from other scholars, I was able to understand that the leadership, organization and management issues which affect organizations today are influenced by several factors which can take place at the same time. In the case of Google Inc., it was evident that there are three passible factors which may be causing the high turnover issue at the company. From the project, I was able to understand how to effectively deal with the issue that may be affecting an organization by addressing the root causes of such problems rather than the symptoms. I believe the skills attained from the project will not only be helpful in my academic study but also vital in my success in the professional world. References Florence, S., Géraldine, C., Gaëtane, D., Donatienne, H., Isabelle, H. & Dorothée, B. (2015). Employees’ organizational identification and affective organizational commitment: an integrative approach. PLoS ONE, 10 (4), 1-23. Jadoo, S., Aljunid, M., Ilker, T., Subhi, M., Ali, G., Kurubaran, A., Radmam, S. (2015). Job satisfaction and turnover intention among Iraqi doctors - a descriptive cross-sectional multicenter study. Human Resources for Health, 13 (1), 1-11. Lindsay, M., &Spillane, K. (2015). Implementing a radical and aggressive strategy to fulfill recruitment and retention challenges. Critical Care Nurse, 35(2), 28-28. Mernin, M. (2015). Bullying in healthcare. Florida Nurse, 63(1), 5-15. Nawaz, U., & Shakir, N. (2014). Job stress evaluation during project life cycle (plc.) on working employees. Pakistan Journal of Science, 66(4), 376-380. Rogoff, B. (2014). 7 Steps for superb staff recruitment and retention. Review of Optometry, 151(11), 28-34. Read More